Memphians planned governor's mansion change

Architects envisioned underground spaces

Memphis architects Barry Yoakum and Todd Walker used an open-air atrium to provide light for the Conservation Hall at the Governors Mansion in Nashville. The mansion underwent an $18 million restoration over the past six years.

Josh Anderson/Associated Press

NASHVILLE -- Memphis architects Barry Yoakum and Todd Walker knew when they first walked the grounds of Tennessee's governor's mansion in 2006 that the large public meeting space envisioned by First Lady Andrea Conte had to go underground.

They had to convince Conte, who pictured the space as a new conservatory behind the house, and State Architect Mike Fitts of their unconventional approach. Guests of governors -- perhaps a delegation of European auto executives considering Tennessee for a new auto plant -- shuttled into a ... basement?

Well, yes.

Three years to the day after their firm archimania was selected to design the first major addition to the residence, Yoakum and Conte unveiled the result Friday: the 14,000-square-foot "Conservation Hall," mostly buried under the mansion's front lawn.

Its centerpiece is a meeting room capable of seating 160 guests, more for receptions, backed by a glass-walled oval atrium and courtyard that opens to the sky and channels light through the space surrounding it.

"My hat's off to the architects," Fitts said. "They said, 'It has to be underground.' We all worried about how to do that well.

"But every problem we threw at them they solved. Without their foresight, it wouldn't have been."

Workers were still busy Friday, but it will be finished when Conte hosts a fundraising First Lady's Luncheon Thursday to celebrate completion of the new hall and the separate restoration of "The Tennessee Residence" finished last year.

A vestibule was added on the far side of the home, with a ramp to the original sunroom and an elevator down to the new hall. (The sunroom features an original painting by the late Memphis artist Carroll Cloar and a large whimsical drawing of Elvis.)

Guests can enter the new meeting space from the residence or from its own entryway at the other end. That modern-looking concrete-walled entrance is a stark contrast to the brick-walled mansion, even evoking the criticism leveled by the state Republican Party two years ago of a taxpayer-funded entertainment "bunker."

But ivy and other landscaping is intended to cover the concrete in green soon so that it blends in with the lawn's older foliage.

Inside, what resembles a terrazzo floor is actually polished concrete. A grand stairway leading to the atrium and hall is floored by wood from logs cut 200 years ago and reclaimed from the bottom of the Tennessee River, where they fell during transport to wood mills at the time.

"The materials we selected are very sustainable, very green, very durable, very minimalist in its approach -- but it has a rich character," Yoakum said. "Very few places you'll find this in Tennessee."

The floor in the meeting space was reclaimed from Tennessee buildings, including old barns. A sculpture of a woman in the courtyard was crafted by Tennessee artist Sherri Warner Hunter as a mosaic of the house's old slate roof tiles.

The hall has a commercial-grade kitchen, waterless urinals and low-flow toilets. The house's new heating and cooling system is an underground geothermal system.

Conte and others were pleased.

"It's actually very poignant today because I've been working with so many people for so long," she said. "My goal was a proper meeting hall for the residence -- something that governors can use from this day forward so they didn't have to put up tents, didn't have to inconvenience their guests and that they can use as an asset for growing Tennessee."

The hall's first event is a banquet honoring Tennessee's teacher of the year. Public tours are planned.

"It's one of the most significant projects I've ever been involved in," said Yoakum. "It's given us a chance to be a part of history."

The Tennessee Residence

Built from 1929-31 as a private home on 10 acres of land five miles south of the State Capitol, the three-story, 16-room Georgian-style house was purchased by the state in 1949 as the governor's residence.

Decades of use and delayed major maintenance -- past governors were wary of the political fallout of spending tax money -- had taken its toll on the house by 2002, when Gov. Phil Bredesen was elected.

The radiator-style heating and cooling system was original, the original slate roof leaked, moisture cracked interior walls, lead-based paint was peeling, old windows were inefficient, aging electrical wiring was fraying, undersized and not grounded, and the house was virtually inaccessible to the disabled.

First Lady Andrea Conte made restoration and improvement of the mansion one of her missions, raising $8.6 million to date for the overall $18 million restoration and new hall.

The Bredesens unveiled their plans in November 2003. Fundraising began in March 2004. Restoration of the house itself began in November 2005. In September 2006, Memphis-based archimania won an architectural design competition for addition of a new "Conservation Hall" meeting space.

The restoration was completed in 2008 and the hall is now substantially finished.